Kim Dotcom Lashes Out Against “Corrupt” US Government

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The US judge handling the Megaupload case noted today that it may never be tried due to a procedural error, a comment that has sparked the anger of Megaupload’s founder. Kim Dotcom is furious with the US Government for destroying his businesses and rendering hundreds of people unemployed. According to Dotcom the case is the result of “corruption on the highest political level, serving the interests of the copyright extremists in Hollywood.”

dotcom freeEarlier today the news broke that a Megaupload trial may never happenbecause the US Government failed to serve the now defunct file-hosting company.

While some defendants might respond with relief upon hearing such news, Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom is only becoming more furious at the people who destroyed his businesses.

“The US government has terminated Megaupload, Megavideo and 10 other subsidiaries, including a company called N1 Limited that was developing a clothing line,” Dotcom told TorrentFreak.

“They destroyed 220 jobs. Millions of legitimate Mega users have no access to their files.”

If Judge O’Grady is to be believed all this damage could very well have been for nothing because the authorities simply can’t serve foreign companies. This could lead one to wonder whether the whole setup was to simply destroy Mega’s businesses.

This is certainly a theory Dotcom subscribes to, and it’s not the only dirty trick Megaupload’s founder believes the US Government is playing. The US is structurally denying Megaupload the chance to put up a fair fight.

“We are refused access to the evidence that clears us, we are refused funds to pay our lawyers, we are refused to pick the lawyers we want to represent us and have any chance for a fair trial,” Dotcom says.

For Megaupload the worst part is that the damage can’t be undone. The site has been completely destroyed as well as the plans to become a publicly traded company.

“We have already been served a death sentence without trial and even if we are found ‘not guilty’ which we will, the damage can never be repaired,” Dotcom says.

And why?

According to Megaupload’s founder it is quite clear that the Mega investigation was a ‘gift’ to Hollywood, facilitated by corrupt forces.

“This Mega takedown was possible because of corruption on the highest political level, serving the interests of the copyright extremists in Hollywood,” he says. “Mega has become a re-election pawn.”

Nevertheless, Dotcom is confident that these forces will eventually be exposed.

“It is just a matter of time until the truth comes out. We are working on that and we are making good progress,” Dotcom concludes.

Megaupload Trial May Never Happen, Judge Says

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A US judge has put a bomb under the Megaupload case by informing the FBI that a trial in the United States may never happen. The cyberlocker was never formally served with the appropriate paperwork by the US authorities, as it is impossible to serve a foreign company with criminal charges.

kim dotcomThe US Government accuses Kim Dotcom and the rest of the “Mega Conspiracy” of running a criminal operation.

Charges in the indictment include engaging in a racketeering conspiracy, conspiring to commit copyright infringement, conspiring to commit money laundering and two substantive counts of criminal copyright infringement.

While the prosecution is hoping to have Megaupload tried in the US, breaking news suggests that this may never happen.

It turns out that the US judge handling the case has serious doubts whether it will ever go to trial due to a procedural error.

“I frankly don’t know that we are ever going to have a trial in this matter,” Judge O’Grady said as reported by the NZ Herald.

Judge O’Grady informed the FBI that Megaupload was never served with criminal charges, which is a requirement to start the trial. The origin of this problem is not merely a matter of oversight. Megaupload’s lawyer Ira Rothken says that unlike people, companies can’t be served outside US jurisdiction.

“My understanding as to why they haven’t done that is because they can’t. We don’t believe Megaupload can be served in a criminal matter because it is not located within the jurisdiction of the United States,” Rothken says.

Megaupload’s lawyer adds that he doesn’t understand why the US authorities weren’t aware of this problem before. As a result Judge O’Grady noted that Megaupload is “kind of hanging out there.”

If this issue indeed prevents Megaupload from being tried in the US, it would be a blunder of epic proportions. And it is not the first “procedural” mistake either.

Last month the New Zealand High Court declared the order used to seize Dotcom’s property “null and void” after it was discovered that the police had acted under a court order that should have never been granted.

The error dates back to January when the police applied for the order granting them permission to seize Dotcom’s property. Rather than applying for an interim restraining order, the Police Commissioner applied for a foreign restraining order instead.

The exact ramifications of the failure to serve will become apparent in the near future.

Megaupload Lawyer Says Case Could Affect Other Storage Services

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A verdict against Megaupload in the U.S. would mean other cloud storage providers can be held criminally liable for illegal content stored by customers on their networks, an attorney representing the shuttered file-sharing site said on Tuesday.

Prosecutors in the U.S. have accused Megaupload and seven people associated with the company, including founder Kim Dotcom, of copyright infringement, aiding and abetting copyright infringement, wire fraud and money laundering. The U.S. has started proceedings to extradite them from New Zealand to the U.S., where they hope to put the company on trial.

It would be the first time a provider of cloud storage services had been charged with criminal copyright infringement in the U.S., said attorney Ira P. Rothken, who will represent Megaupload if the case comes to trial.

The cases against the music file-sharing services Grokster and Napster were both civil cases, meaning they were brought by aggrieved parties, such as the record companies, as opposed to the state. Civil cases generally require a lower burden of proof, making them easier to prove.

The Grokster case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, which in 2005 found the company liable for “inducing” copyright infringement by its end users, or secondary liability for copyright infringement.

There is no statute for secondary infringement in criminal law, however. In a criminal case, prosecutors will have to prove primary copyright infringement, meaning the defendants knew what they were doing and willfully infringed, Rothken said.

He described the indictment against Megaupload as “breathtaking.” It doesn’t name specific works that were allegedly infringed, or name any individuals responsible for sharing those works. Instead, the indictment holds Megaupload and its operators responsible for the conduct of its users.

That position is incompatible with how cloud services work, Rothken contended. Privacy laws in the U.S. prevent cloud storage providers from looking at the content its users have stored, he said.

“As a practical matter, anything that is needed for a cloud storage provider to make an assessment of what is infringing or what is not is essentially off-limits for them to look at,” he said.

Megaupload hasn’t filed its response to the charges indicating how it will defend itself. Julie Samuels, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said Rothken is likely to cite the safe harbor provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which protect ISPs against liability for what users do on their networks. It’s not clear yet if that protection extends to storage service providers, however.

Rothken contends that Megaupload had a robust program to take down infringing content in compliance with the DMCA. It means that Megaupload would not meet the “willful” requirement to prove criminal copyright infringement, he said.

Rothken criticized the way in which the U.S. shut down Megaupload’s domain, abruptly cutting off users from data that may have been legally theirs. He has been negotiating with the government to free up funds from Megaupload’s frozen bank accounts, which could then be used to pay Megaupload’s hosting provider in order to preserve the data.

The U.S. government rejected a deal he reached with Carpathia Hosting, which holds the data, to obtain the physical servers and pay the hosting company around $1 million after the case is adjudicated, Rothken said.

Rothken said he plans to file a brief with the court in a few days asking for the data to be preserved. Other parties have already filed briefs: the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which supports preserving the data for non-infringing Megaupload users, and the Motion Picture Association of America, which expressed fears that if Megaupload controls the data, pirated content may circulate once again.

Rothken plans to argue that under U.S. law, only Megaupload is entitled to control the data. “We believe under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act that data is Megaupload’s to handle for the benefit of consumers,” he said.

Source: Jeremy Kirk


Megaupload Mega Song HD

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Megaupload Mega Song HD

Censored by UMG – Mega suing UMG – Reinstated by Youtube

Song produced by Kim Dotcom and Printz Board.
Vocals by Printz Board, Kim Dotcom and Macy Gray.

Thanks to:

Will.i.am
P Diddy
Kanye West
Chris Brown
Jamie Foxx
Kim Kardashian
Lil John
The Game
Floyd Mayweather
Serena Williams
Ciara.

Earlier today, Megaupload released a pop video featuring mainstream artists who endorse the cyberlocker service. News of the controversial Mega Song even trended on Twitter, but has now been removed from YouTube on copyright grounds by Universal Music. Kim Dotcom says that Megaupload owns everything in the video, and that the label has engaged in dirty tricks in an attempt to sabotage their successful viral campaign.

Site founder Kim Dotcom told TorrentFreak he had commissioned a song from producer Printz Board featuring huge recording artists including P Diddy, Will.i.am, Alicia Keys, Kanye West, Snoop Dogg, Chris Brown, The Game and Mary J Blige. These and others were shouting the praises of Megaupload.

By this afternoon #megaupload was trending on Twitter as news of the song spread. Little surprise interest was so high; Megaupload is described as a rogue site by the RIAA and here are some of their key labels’ artists promoting the service in the most powerful way possible – through a song.

And then, just a little while ago, the music stopped. Visitors to YouTube hoping to listen to the Mega Song were met with the following message.

 

Mega Song Blocked
 

TorrentFreak immediately contacted Kim to find out what was happening.

“Those UMG criminals. They are sending illegitimate takedown notices for content they don’t own,” he told us. “Dirty tricks in an effort to stop our massively successful viral campaign.”

So did Universal have any right at all to issue YouTube with a takedown notice? Uncleared samples, anything?

“Mega owns everything in this video. And we have signed agreements with every featured artist for this campaign,” Kim told TorrentFreak.

“UMG did something illegal and unfair by reporting Mega’s content to be infringing. They had no right to do that. We reserve our rights to take legal action. But we’d like to give them the opportunity to apologize.”

“UMG is such a rogue label,” Kim added, wholly appreciating the irony.

A few minutes after this exchange Kim contacted us with good news. After filing a YouTube copyright takedown dispute, the video was reinstated. But alas, just seconds later, it was taken down again.

“We filed a dispute, the video came back online and now it’s blocked again by UMG and the automated YouTube system has threatened to block our account for repeat infringement,” Kim explained.

TorrentFreak spoke with Corynne McSherry, Intellectual Property Director at EFF, who says this type of copyright abuse is nothing new.

“This appears to be yet another example of the kind of takedown abuse we’ve seen under existing law — and another reason why Congress should soundly reject the broad new powers contemplated in the Internet Blacklist Bills, aka SOPA/PIPA.

“If IP rightholders can’t be trusted to use the tools already at their disposal — and they can’t — we shouldn’t be giving them new ways to stifle online speech and creativity,” McSherry concludes.

Sherwin Siy, Deputy Legal Director at Public Knowledge, worries that this type of sweeping power would only be augmented with the arrival of the SOPA anti-piracy bill in the US.

“If UMG took down a video it has no rights to, then what we have here is exactly the sort of abuse that careless, overzealous, or malicious copyright holders can create by abusing a takedown law,” he told us.

“What makes this even worse is that UMG, among others, is pushing to expand its power to shut people down by fiat–SOPA lets rightsholders de-fund entire websites with the same sort of non-reviewed demand that removed this video,” he concludes.

Megaupload’s Kim Dotcom informs us that he has now submitted an international counter notification to YouTube, informing them that UMG has no rights to anything in the video and that the label abused the YouTube takedown system to sabotage the company’s business.

“It’s ridiculous how UMG is abusing their intervention powers in YouTube’s system to stop our legitimate campaign. They are willfully sabotaging this viral campaign. They own no rights to this content,” Kim insists.

“What UMG is doing is illegal. And those are the people who are calling Mega rogue? Insanity!”

Streisand Effect, here we come again.

Update: “The fact that this expression could be silenced by a major label — without any apparent infringement — should be seriously troubling to anyone who cares about artists’ speech rights,” says Casey Rae-Hunter, Deputy Director, Future of Music Coalition. “If this can happen to Snoop Dogg and others, it can happen to anyone.”


Megaupload: Kim Dotcom May Regain Possessions

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In a potentially embarrassing turn of events for the case against Kim “Dotcom” Schmitz, former head of Megaupload and perhaps the third most famous Kim currently living, it seems that the seizure of his property may be overturned as a result of a misfiled restraint order by the New Zealand Police.

Schmitz, a German national, is currently fighting extradition from New Zealand to the US to be prosecuted on charges relating to copyright-infringing material being made available through Megaupload.com and its partner sites. Although Megaupload did not directly sell the allegedly infringing content, it profited from advertising revenues based on page views and subscription fees from premium members. According to the indictment, the damage to copyright holders from Megaupload’s activities totals more than $500,000,000 – although the statistical metrics behind this calculation remain uncertain.

According to a report in the New Zealand Herald, Dotcom’s assets were impounded under an order which precluded the possibility of Him mounting a legal defense to re-acquire them. Described as a procedural error, this will nonetheless look to critics of the handling of the case like the misuse of extreme legal measures designed to battle terrorists and avert loss of life. This narrative has been ongoing since the deployment of armed STG officers – the New Zealand equivalent of SWAT – in the initial raid. Schmitz is a keen and fierce competitor in Activision’sModern Warfare video game: one consequence of his incarceration before release on bail was the loss of his status as Modern Warfare 3′s highest-ranking multiplayer competitor. This will make for an interesting emotional damages claim in any countersuit.


A typically understated celebration by “Megaracer” on becoming the world’s most prodigious Modern Warfare 3 killer.

New Zealand’s Crown Law Office – mindful, no doubt, that when they mess up it makes the Queen look bad – promptly applied for the correct restraining order, listing for seizure items that had already been seized under the previous order. Justice Judith Potter has already declared that the initial order was null and void, and will shortly address claims by Schmitz’ legal team that the property should be returned to their client’s control forthwith.

If the property is returned, along with a number of servers and tools of his trade Schmitz will be able once again to enjoy his Predator Statue, $17,500 Devon Tread 1 wristwatch and perhaps enjoy a game of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 on one of the many enormous TV screens which were seized in the initial raid. Having secured a release on bail in spite of FBI opposition, Schmitz recently made  statements to the file-sharing news site Torrentfreakexpressing the hope that will soon to be able to reveal the identities of his site’s biggest users in the Department of Justice. If this tactic – of apparently trolling the case against – pays off, Schmitz may be able to say to his prosecutors, as he did to his victims on the virtual battlefield:

Don’t hate me because I beat you. Respect me because I teach you :)

However, the DoJ, whose lack of a sense of humour is generally comsidered a feature rather than a bug, may prove a tougher foe than 15 million Xbox antagonists. It’s not all bad news for American copyright abroad – nearer to home, the Crown signed off on the quickie extradition of Richard o’Dwyer for sharing links to copyright-infringing material on his TVShack website, using an extradition act signed hurriedly into law in 2003 as a vital tool in the war against terror. If the line between piracy and terrorism becomes blurred in the eyes of content providers and lawmakers, Dotcom may yet have cause to regret his vaunted gift with a virtual assault rifle.

 


We are working on a new cloud hosting website!! – Better than megaupload ;-)…Stay tuned!!

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Hi guys,

I’m a student who graduated recently with a computer science degree. And after watching mega upload go down I’ve been motivated to create my own cloud hosting company that allows you guys to host your files for personal use!! Obviously no illegal content, just your personal stuff!! I’m looking for a June 2012 launch but that has yet to be confirmed.

We will be competing with rapidshare, fileserve, mediafire and so and so.

We are looking for a simple way for users to upload and share their files easily and securely.

We welcome any new ideas or suggestions which you guys have.

We are also seeking developers who would like to join our team!!

Thanks guys!! Admin